I just remain really confused about his medical history.
My son is ASD with language impairment and certainty was not talking at aged 8 as in it was scatter-gunned noises with words interspersed.
We were also advised at 18 months that he would be globally delayed ( by neurology) due to a delayed latency on a VEP indicating white matter damage and immaturity. He was described in detail by SALT at that age as showing echolaeia, rambling and scattergunned words. At age 11 he was still on the 1 percentile.
Although my son talks now and is at university, his ASD impacted speech issues remain. He has tangential speech, false starts and stutters. He has marked intelligence so can smooth it out a bit and it’s just his speech pattern
The cause of much of ASD language disorder is the working memory and the talking load. This results in slightly non fluid speech with sentences like ‘it’s as if it’s as if I was going going to the zoo’ The stutters are classically ASD and differ from a non ASD stutter in nature. A word in the middle of the sentence get started, rejected and then repeated etc - it’s hard to describe but it makes using voice to text a nightmare.
Perhaps this man had something else going on? Not classic language disorder but a reluctance to talk?
Suddenly his brain decided to allow him to talk?
He also said he had global delay
Again that would be in intellect/
learning, physical motor skills and social communication and speech.
Global delays means profound issues in 3 ( I think ) things.
If someone has learning impairment as a young child as an example they are not goi n to suddenly be able to read. They are testing with an IQ below 80 ( I think that in the 70 is the cut off)
if a child has motor issues - they simply don’t disappear.
You need to hit 3 of these ( I think) to be global.
My son was under childhood development clinic and was diagnosed motor and language.
His learning was unimpaired. He ironically smiled so he was at that time socially ok ( ironically as he was diagnosed ASD later)
You don’t normally suddenly miraculously get better from eg motor. Despite huge improvements my son would never be a football player or tennis player. He has to have support to structure / organise a tray to keep it balanced as an example.
He cannot cut safely. He can’t write long pieces of text and needs equipment.it also impacts his organisational processes eg he has soft ware to brain storm.
The fact is that ND is caused by something in the brain not working right. Therapy can go so far but not far enough to eradicate it.
This man described profound development issues from childhood - like my son.
As a disabled person this man was held up to my son ‘look what you can achieve and he is just similar to you ‘ but life for my son is not that simple.
My son has done amazingly well to overcome huge issues but you can’t normally ( in my experience ) expect a miracle which is what seems to have allegedly happened here.
Yes my son has an amazing and sophisticated vocab to overcome word finding issues. However he has disordered language still. You never recover from receptive language impairment as far as I understand.
Yes he is physically better but he still tests at 0.5 percentile on the ABC with all the issues that involves including just remembering where to be each day. He will always need help with his executive functioning / organisation aspects of life.
Against that my son has very deep breath and depth of knowledge in his chosen subject and will read and consume books widely on the subject and will be able to have detailed analytical arguments. Hsi support team hope for the best for him and hope we will get his degree and then a Masters. But he has to work really hard to achieve ( far more than NT students ) and indeed volunteered with his PA throughout Summer on a project linked to his special interest / degree. Again he has a PA to hand to support when needed.
For my son there is no Lazarus moment ie suddenly he talked, suddenly all his delays went away. For him, life is not like that. His life is sheer hard work to be at university. He gets immensely tired as he has to work twice or three times as hard to achieve. But his hyper focus allows him to do that.